


meditations post mortem

by beautyoftheshadows (orphan_account)



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 04:04:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13539333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/beautyoftheshadows
Summary: After all she's done and all she's missed, Jean takes time to reflect.Coda to Phoenix Resurrection #5.





	meditations post mortem

It’s been a long time since Jean was alone in her head. Even now, the psychic plane is far from silent, full of the incessant mental chatter and emotions of the mansion’s many inhabitants, but it’s a pale replacement for the minds she had been linked to for so long. Scott and the Phoenix, her husband and the entity she was so sure was her other half, her two oldest and dearest friends, both now ripped from her mental landscape. The fire of the Phoenix has finally gone out, and the line that connected her to Scott has been cut. She keeps probing that part of her mind, like a child who’s lost their first tooth, only to discover the absence all over again. Her head feels cavernous and empty, echoing with only her own thoughts.

She sits on her bed for hours, knees pulled to her chest, in the mansion she’s called home since she was sixteen. The clock ticks softly on, and the shadows on the wall shift as the morning ages. Hank passes by her door more than once, always pausing, hesitant, debating whether or not to knock. She doesn’t have the heart to send him away herself, but she breathes a sigh of relief each time he chooses to continue on down the corridor. His mind is a minefield of arguments for which she has no context.

There seems to be very little for which she does have context. It’s a mansion full of strangers, students whose names she doesn’t know and heroes she’s never fought beside. Even those whose hearts and minds should be as familiar to her as her own seem different, irrevocably altered by the years that passed her by. She doesn’t even know how long it’s been. It would be a simple enough matter to find out, but she’s reluctant terrified of what the answer may be. What if it’s been longer than she thinks it has, what if years and years have come and gone, and she’s trapped in a future she can no longer rejoin? Or what if it’s been less than that, what if it’s been no time at all, and all these great and terrible changes have been wrought within a few short years? Either way, most of what she thought she knew has fallen apart.

She spends the morning preoccupied with her worry and a profound sense of loss- for Scott, for the Phoenix, for herself and all those days she’ll never get backed. It’s only interrupted when Ororo knocks at the door, bearing a tray laden with lunch and tea. They talk for a minute, a careless exchange of words and smiles, and then Jean’s cheeks are wet with tears and so are Ororo’s.

“‘Til death do us part,’ you said,” Jean says, when she trusts herself to speak.

“‘That’ll be the day,’” Ororo says, an echo of a long-ago conversation. Even if Jean couldn’t read her thoughts, she’d recognize the love and anguish in her eyes. “I guess you were right, in the end.”

“Oh, ’Ro,” Jean says, and wraps her arms tightly around her friend, pressing her cheek against Ororo’s. She still smells the same, Jean notes, sharp and metallic but sweet as well, like a thunderstorm compressed into a person. “I never meant to leave you.”

After Ororo leaves, Jean begins to pace, looking around the room for something to distract her. She finds it, in the contents of the bookshelves. It’s her stuff, all of it. Her copy of _Little Women_ and her copy of _Jane Eyre_ , her small collection of CDs and her considerably larger collection of Batman comics. She thumbs idly through an issue of _Detective Comics_ and wonders how this all came to be here. It would have been boxed up after her death, she guesses, stored somewhere off the premises so that it was preserved when the last mansion went up in flames. Someone must have returned it to this new mansion after this fact, building a space for Jean to come back to, the closest replica of her old room that they could get. Not Logan- rank sentimentality isn’t his style. Hank, she guesses. He always did have a penchant for nostalgia, a tendency to remember golden days that never were.

She drops the comic back on its shelf and turns her attention to the dresser. It holds a scattered assortment of photographs from throughout her life, a dozen frozen reminders of days past. There’s one snapped in Central Park in the fall, she and Misty tightly bundled against the autumn chill, standing next to Ororo, who’s in a sleeveless dress, oblivious to the weather. Next to is one of Jean and Bobby, clearly taken on Ship. She’s laughing, and he has that self-satisfied grin that means he’s just told a truly awful joke. Then there’s one she remembers taken, a portrait of a stoic Logan, apparently unaware that Kurt has appeared behind him to give him bunny ears.

At the front of the group is a picture from her wedding day. Not one of the official photos, posed and stiff, but one she actually likes. In it, she’s smashing cake against Scott’s mouth and they’re both grinning like fools. She looks at it with a soft smile. The emptiness inside her is still there, of course. It will take weeks, months, maybe years, for her to let go of this grief, but for now, she’s content to look at her husband’s face and smile.

The photo next to it is of the first day of fourth grade. Nine-year-old Jean and little Annie Richardson have their arms around each other, their Catholic school uniforms spotless for once, identical proud grins on their faces. Jean gently lifts the frame from her dresser and sits back on her bed, staring at it. Now that she knows what Annie would have looked like as an adult, she can see it so clearly. In the lines of the young girl’s face, she can make out the future she should have had. Faced as she is with the consequences of her decision, she’s hit with a wave of remorse. She knows she made the right choice, but if Annie’s parents were here now, she couldn’t explain it to them.

There’s another knock on the door, pulling her back before she spirals too deeply into regrets. Hastily placing the photograph back in its place, she hurries to answer the door. When it opens, it’s to reveal Rachel Grey, smiling but unsure. Jean hesitates for only a heartbeat before opening her arms to enfold her daughter.

“Hiya, kiddo.”

“Hiya, Mom,” Rachel whispers, her head on Jean’s shoulder, clinging to her like a lifeline. When she finally lets go, Jean can see that despite the tears shining in her eyes, Rachel refuses to let a single one fall.

“It’s good to see you again,” Jean says.

“You too.” Rachel has to clear her throat before continuing. “Things have been- it’s been bad since you left.”

If they were mother and daughter the way mother and daughter should be, Jean would press a kiss to Rachel’s forehead and tell her that it’s all alright, Momma’s back now, and everything is going to be okay. Jean knows, however, that they aren’t that kind of family, and real life is never so simple.

“We’re having a meeting, downstairs.” Rachel says. “I thought I’d see if you wanted to come. You don’t have to, or anything, I just thought, if you did, I might want to ask you-”

“Of course,” Jean says, “Can’t stay holed up in here forever.” She steps decisively out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her. Then she takes Rachel’s hand, lacing her finger through her daughter’s, and hand-in-hand with Rachel, Jean begins to walk away. “After all, there’s work to be done.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had quite a lot of feelings and thoughts about today's issue of Phoenix Resurrection, so I decided to work them out in fanfic form. I'm tremendously excited for X-Men Red next week.


End file.
